Almost every person in the world starts their morning with a cup of coffee. This is what makes it all the more shocking that most of the regular coffee drinkers don’t make it properly. Use this quick guide to manually make a perfect cup of joe, and skip out on all the less than perfect cups of coffee in the future.
Use Freshly Roasted Beans
The first thing you should pay attention to if you want to make a perfect cup of joe is to use freshly roasted beans. There are many reasons why this will yield the best coffee you’ve had in a while. Firstly, freshly roasted beans aren’t readily available at every supermarket because it’s easier for them to sell ground vacuum-sealed coffee. This, although might have an acceptable flavor, has released most of its aroma because ground coffee will evaporate these substances faster because of the bigger surface. It’s better if the coffee is kept in the bean form as long as possible. In addition to this, even the beans will lose their aroma if they’ve become stale, so it’s crucial to pay attention here. Look around for a coffee shop in your area and if you want to make that perfect cup of joe, buy only freshly roasted beans and make sure you store them in a vacuum-sealed container until use.
Use the Proper Size of the Grind
Manually making a perfect cup of joe is all about small improvements on important steps. By many coffee experts, grinding the coffee is the most important one of all. The reason why it’s so important is that grind size on its own can dramatically impact the taste of your coffee. Three factors make the biggest difference when it comes down to grind size: flow rate, extraction rate, and contact time. In simpler terms, this means that the extraction rate of coffee grounds is bigger with a larger surface area, and to increase the surface area, the coffee beans need to be a fine grind. The higher the extraction rate, the less time needed, and the finer the grind is the lower the flow rate of water, the bigger the contact time. While making coffee manually can guarantee the best cup ever, grinding it manually can be very exhausting and time-consuming so you might want to consider purchasing a commercial coffee grinder. In addition to this, if you want a finer grind, a commercial coffee grinder has more power and can produce finer coffee grounds than average coffee grinders.
Extraction Methods
There are a few extraction methods when it comes down to making the best coffee at home, and they all depend on what type of coffee you like to drink. To make coffee manually though, there are a few great options: Turkish coffee, pour-over coffee, and Aeropress coffee. As we’ve mentioned, all of these are manual methods for making coffee at home and some are easier than others as you’ll soon see.
Turkish coffee is the easiest one to make since all it requires is that you boil about 100 ml of water in a very small pot, and once it starts boiling, turn the gas off and add about two teaspoons of finely ground coffee. Let it sink, and only then mix it, and let it “rise” about three times. Turkish coffee is not filtered, so just pour it like it is in a cup and enjoy it.
Pour-over coffee requires a filter and a special system setup of a cone to fit the filter in, but the bases are the same. Measure out the number of coffee grinds you prefer, put it in the filter and pour boiled water over it and let it drip on its own. It’s recommended to use the scale for measuring out the number of coffee grounds, as well as the amount of water that goes in to hit the perfect spot.
To make Aeropress coffee, the process is the same as with pour-over coffee but it has a tube-like shape and you essentially manually push the water through the coffee in the filter. This yields coffee much faster, and it has more crema than pour-over coffee. Even though it requires a bit of work, the result is worth it.
Manually making a perfect cup of coffee has never been easier. Although it incorporates the manual extraction methods, not every step of the way has to be manual such as grinding the beans. While it’s important to freshly grind your coffee, what good does it do to spend that much time? So instead, you can use commercial grinders to make this happen faster. Enjoy this quick guide!
